Foot and mouth farmer banned for 15 years

The pig farmer accused of starting last year's devastating foot and mouth outbreak was yesterday ordered to be electronically tagged for three months and banned from keeping farm animals for 15 years.

Bobby Waugh, 56, who was found guilty last month of wilfully failing to alert officials when he knew his animals had the disease, was also ordered to keep an overnight curfew and pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs.

The farmer, who with his brother, Ron, ran a pig fattening unit in Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, was also found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to pigs, feeding his animals unprocessed waste, and failing to properly dispose of animal byproducts.

The same charges against his brother are unlikely to proceed due to his ill-health.

Yesterday district judge David Prowse, sitting at South East Northumberland magistrates court, said he could have jailed Waugh for the animal cruelty charges but did not do so because of his previous good character and his poor health.

Mr Prowse said he had reminded himself during the case that Waugh was not standing trial for being the source of the foot-and-mouth outbreak. "You are before the court specifically for the things you did or did not do," he said. "You are not to be a scapegoat for what happened after."

Jeremy Stuart-Smith QC, defending, said Waugh was a man of previous good character who was now held in contempt by others in the farming industry and had received hate mail.

He said his client had an overdraft of £57,000 despite receiving foot-and-mouth compensation. The home that he shared with his brother and two sisters was worth £40,000.

The tenant farmer also suffers from angina and had been under pressure at the time of the outbreak because of his brother's terminal illness, the court was told.

The foot and mouth outbreak was first discovered in February last year at an Essex abattoir, Cheale Meats, which was supplied by the Waugh brothers. When officials raided the Northumberland unit they found 80% of the 527 animals were clearly suffering from the disease.

The farmer was given six months to pay £10,000 towards the £90,000 prosecution costs of Northumberland county council whose trading standards department investigated the case. Outside court trading standards officer, Mick King, said: "The sentence passed reflects the seriousness of the offences that Bobby Waugh has committed. Failing to report foot-and-mouth, the most infectious disease known to man, has devastating consequences as we have all witnessed."